Students suspended for anti-Semitic photo

Four Transcona-area high school students have been suspended following an investigation of an anti-Semitic and racist incident, which is also now being investigated by police.

The four boys are Grade 12 students at Murdoch MacKay Collegiate. They, along with a fifth student, appeared in a photo posted on a Facebook page that shows them smiling as they are kneeling behind an SUV parked in front of their high school. Drawn into the dust of the SUV's tailgate window are numerous swastikas and several anti-Semitic and racist phrases.

"People need to understand that this is not acceptable," Dennis Pottage, superintendent of the River East Transcona School Division, said. "The public is outraged by that and so they should be."

The division had received a smaller, cropped, screen-shot version of the photo earlier but was unable to discern any details. A high-quality version of the photo was provided to the division Monday, which allowed officials to identify the students.

Pottage said four of the students, and their parents, were contacted Tuesday and formally suspended. The fifth student in the photo was not at school and officials did not know where he was and had no explanation for his absence.

Pottage would not say how long the students will be suspended from school but added division officials will work with them.

"In talking to the four we've been in contact with, they are very remorseful," Pottage said. "I don't believe they understood the significance of their actions but the bottom line is it's totally inappropriate and we have to respond that way.

"They certainly will undergo a significant intervention."

Pottage said Winnipeg police have been informed. A Winnipeg Police Service spokesman said an investigation has been initiated but offered no other details.

A local official with B'nai Brith Canada said the boys should be charged with a hate crime, adding education officials have to recognize there is a problem with hate crimes in their schools.

Alan Yusim, regional director of B'nai Brith Canada, said this is another in a long line of hate-crime incidents involving students at Winnipeg schools, adding drastic changes must be implemented.

"My guess is there aren't any Jewish students at (Murdoch MacKay Collegiate) and it's likely none of these students know a Jewish person," Yusim said.

Yusim said school divisions have to acknowledge they are doing a poor job dealing with hate crime in classrooms, adding course material has to be added to deal with this.

Winnipeg police have charged a 15-year-old boy after it's alleged he made anti-Semitic comments to a girl at Oak Park high school in mid-November and then singed her hair with a lighter.

The assault drew outrage from the community but several Oak Park students supported the boy's actions. The school division subsequently suspended another student and disciplined a third in the aftermath of the assault.

Yusim said education officials portrayed the Oak Park High School incident as an isolated event, adding what has happened at Murdoch MacKay Collegiate is proof there is a serious problem in the schools.

"School divisions have let everyone down," Yusim said. "We need a values-based curriculum that incorporates anti-hate training right from Day One."

Pottage said when the investigation is completed, officials will consider all measures to ensure it doesn't happen again, but added he's not aware of a similar incident within the division.

Pottage said he believes the five students are collectively responsible for the anti-Semitic and racist images and phrases drawn.

"They just didn't stumble across and find," the images drawn on the vehicle's windows, he said. "But I don't know who wrote it, or whether one wrote it or they all participated."

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 11, 2012 A6